A remarkable day in Cairo – Any hope for Nigeria? (I)

I had to make a quick dash back to the UAE weeks after I recently returned. There was already a tiff between the Nigerian government and Emirates Airlines, the popular Dubai-owned carrier. I hear that this disagreement has taken a turn for even worse now and that Emirates may altogether stop coming here and that is […]

I had to make a quick dash back to the UAE weeks after I recently returned. There was already a tiff between the Nigerian government and Emirates Airlines, the popular Dubai-owned carrier. I hear that this disagreement has taken a turn for even worse now and that Emirates may altogether stop coming here and that is sad. Nigeria has no bargaining chip at all and will continue to endure disrespect from foreign entities until we find a leader who can rein in our people. Funny enough, Emirates Airlines it was that brought in our three million vaccines. We didn’t reject that then.

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Anyway, Nigerians had been allegedly showing up with fake COVID-19 results, thus pouring water on the efforts of the UAE government to return to normal and carry everyone else along. The governments of the UAE at all its international ports, has been bearing great expense to test every traveler for the virus, for free. But here we were, with our usual problems, messing up everything we touch.

One lady I met in the flight told me that tests from the IDH Yaba, the very flagship centre for the treatment of the virus in Nigeria, has now been declared persona non-grata around the world.  Many of the tests issued from there are fake. At Lagos Airport, known for incurable graft, begging and fraud, there are touts who offer a fake test for N30,000. I remember that they once offered me a Yellow Fever card, en route Ghana, for N2,000. Some of the cleaners get it done inside the toilets.

Because of the frequency of forgeries, Emirates Airlines insisted on extra covid-19 tests before people fly out of Nigeria and went ahead to contact two companies in quick succession; MobiHealth and Medicaid. They were meant to have booths within our airports from where they would conduct a rapid test on all travellers to Dubai. Because of spikes in infections, the airline had earlier instructed that only Emirates Airlines will be allowed to airlift passengers into Dubai. This irked some stakeholders but we all seemed to have forgotten that the COVID-19 scare has not ended, and left to some powerful people we would all still be in rolling lockdowns by now, hiding under our beds, even afraid to touch our own children.

The UAE is one defiant and forward-looking nation, worthy of emulation in this respect. And so for my trip I had made the payment of N25,800 to Mobihealth three days to departure and when the company was dropped for Medicaid, I had to pay another N21,000. Then Nigerian government insisted that Emirates Airlines had no right to make laws in Nigeria. The NCAA – Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority was particularly miffed that Emirates went ahead to contact diagnostics providers with no recourse.  How dare they insert a booth in our airport without carrying them along? In some quarters people allege that the Nigerian authorities were just angry that there was no deal in this for them. Genuine travellers were caught in the middle. The UAE authorities insisted on extra tests, Nigerian government played to the gallery that it was defending the Nigerian people. Already, while trying to save Nigerian travellers N21,000, they had made everyone lose at least another N39,500 for the normal test that expires.

Most people will lose a lot more as many are stranded, business opportunities lost, and now no one is sure when the impasse will be resolved. Well a timeline of March 10th, 2021 was given. We shall see how that goes. As I told someone in the beginning of the saga, Nigeria had NOTHING with which to stare down Emirates Airline or the UAE government. In fact, in a short while our ‘big men’ will be begging on hands and knees. I noticed that it was the same Emirates Airlines that helped bring our much-awaited vaccines on the 2nd of March, 2021. Small but powerful country, the UAE.

Air Egypt

Many Nigerians had been sleeping rough at the airports for days. A contingent of Nigerian Paralympians cut a pitiful picture at Abuja airport. Women and children were totally abandoned for days, until Emirates put its foot down and stopped all flights to and from Nigeria on the 9th of February, 2020; the very day I was to travel. While at the Abuja Airport, my friends in immigration informed me that EgyptAir could be an option if I flew into Sharjah. Whatever works. I had to get this business sorted once and for all. So Sharjah here I come.

But I looked forward more to traveling to Cairo especially because there was a long layover. I had only passed through the airport without stepping out into the city once several years ago. I saw from the air then that day that Cairo was a massive city with solid structures (from the plane windows), but I didn’t mind a more up-close and personal experience.

I wasn’t to be disappointed. Contrary to the expectation that EgyptAir was too austere and therefore uncomfortable for passengers, I found that the airline – like every normal forward-thinking organization short of what we see especially in Nigeria and other backward African nations – has kept improving. The flight was therefore quite comfortable even in Economy but for the fact that inflight service was drab. They only serve two pieces of sandwiches with a small pack of fruit juice and water.  No tea no coffee. Nothing that wasn’t already packed because of COVID-19 they said.  The leg room afforded in Economy showed that they respected their passengers and care about people’s health though. This is in sharp contrast to what one sees on airlines like British Airways, Air France and others. I swore never to fly British Airways ever again after my last experience. They were simply indecent and the way the seats had been squished just to maximise profits showed that they didn’t care who keeled over and died. Not everybody can afford or wants Business Class.

The flight to Cairo was a clear five hours, but upon landing around 830pm in the night, we had to wait in the airport for EgyptAir officials to obtain transit visas on behalf of transit passengers, before we were driven to a hotel close to the airport. Le Passage was the one I was taken to; old, weather-beaten, but still of fairly high standards compared to what we see here. The hotel has 419 rooms and many other facilities. I enjoyed a restful night.

Touring Cairo

The next day, my flight was in the night (7 pm).  So, it was just great as I could connect with my old friend who is a Director with the Afrexim group. My tour of Cairo began at just after 12 noon and lasted about two and half hours. Already from the airport vicinity where I was it was evident that this country was several notches ahead of what I was used to in Nigeria. But this was the airport area and wise countries are known to sterilize such environments.  I needed to see the town proper; the land of Pharaohs; much excoriated and demonised in the Bible. What had they made of themselves today? I wanted to get a feel of the vision that the nation and her people had for themselves. That we were on the same continental slate made it more painful, depressing and alarming for me when I discovered the reality. It is indeed true that North Africans have a different mindset from sub-Saharan Africans. I saw why some of them are ‘racist’ and do not want to be equally yoked with the rest of us black people. Many Algerians, Libyans, Egyptians, Moroccans, and Tunisians do not enjoy being identified as Africans by the way. This is why Egypt is known officially as the Arab Republic of Egypt.  I saw why this may be so.  As an aside, for one, the Cairo Airport is quite vast, it could swallow Lagos and Abuja Airports, combined, thirty times. I had always known that, but when I was driven for almost 30 minutes in an Uber ride and we were still within the airport perimeter wall and at average speed, I was in awe of these people.